AMONGST THE RUBBLE: Stray Dog Turns Rescue Dog as He Works to Find Survivors in Nepal

Yumenosuke, a four-year-old former stray from Hiroshima, has been in Nepal since Sunday with a Japanese emergency aid team, helping sniff out earthquake survivors.

Already a hero in Japan after his first mission last year, when he discovered two survivors trapped by a deadly mudslide near his home town, Yumenosuke is now on his first overseas trip, hoping to repeat his success.

It’s lucky, though, that he’s even here at all. He was recruited in 2010 by Peace Winds Japan, a non-profit organisation on the hunt for talented mutts to work as rescue dogs, on the very day that he’d been due to be put down as a stray.